OK, it’s tagliatelle, home-made from excess sourdough starter. I generally don’t have spaghetti in the house as it’s far from my favourite pasta shape. I’m just back from a trip to northern Italy and on our last evening I ventured to order spaghetti carbonara. It was divine. We make a version of it quite often at home (never order it in a restaurant in France. You will get a pile of lukewarm pasta slathered in cream and piled with lardons and cheese, plus a raw egg yolk in half an eggshell perched on top).
Anyway. This experience prompted me to stop in at a deli the next day and buy some guanciale (dry-cured pork cheek), which according to purists is the only meat you should use for carbonara. Maybe pancetta at a pinch, certainly not bacon. I can now confirm this is true, having made it for lunch today. Admittedly I had forgotten to buy any pecorino cheese, so I used Parmesan. If you can get hold of pecorino, do. The restaurant used a soft fresh pecorino grated over the top; I’m not sure if this is truly authentic or a northern Italy quirk.
Anyway. This is now my definitive recipe, though we’re unlikely to do it this way every time. Dieters look away now: guanciale is very fatty, at least 50% fat I reckon. You cook it slowly in its own fat in a frying pan till crispy, ending up with a lake of rendered fat. Then you tip the cooked pasta into the frying pan and stir it around thoroughly to make sure that pasta picks up every last drop of porky, cholesterol-laden fat. It tastes amazing and is what helps the sauce to cohere and coat the pasta properly. It’s completely different from making it with a lesser pork product. As for Jamie Oliver with his “carbonara” with sausages in it, he can get in the bin.
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